Page 48 of To Claim the Long-Lost Lover
Nate found himself sitting on a little two-seater couch with Sarah at his side and a plate of sweet cakes and finely-cut sandwiches on a little table before them. The other ladies settled with their own choice of drink and edibles.
The Duchess of Haverford—Aunt Eleanor, and how the men he’d known in the navy would stare at him addressing a duchess in such an intimate fashion—called the meeting back to order.
“We have the essential elements of Nate’s and Sarah’s romance, ladies. Now we need to decide what to emphasise, and what to conceal.”
Rosemary heaved a deep sigh. “It is such a romantic tale,” she declared.
In a lesser lady, the smile the duchess gave might have been described as wicked. “Precisely,” she said. “And that is how we shall present it.”
“I propose,” said Lady Sutton—Mama—“that we blame all the negative elements on Lord Sutton and the old duke, and credit Nate and Sarah with all the heroism.”
“Of course,” said Aunt Eleanor.
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Curse all women to hell, and his sister to the deepest of the fiery pits. He should never have trusted the evil bitch. Never.
The Beast strode up and down the tiny room that he’d rented in a respectable boarding house in Southwark, too angry to sleep or even to sit still. Elspeth had double-crossed him. She had argued against his manifold stratagems to punish the two ducal families who had opposed him, and had then disappeared. The very next day he found his schemes collapsing around his ears as one ally after another was arrested.
Her betrayal was the only explanation, though he could not find out where she was. Just as well, perhaps, since his need to punish the ugly cow might have tempted him to risk his own escape for the pleasure of choking her to death with his own hands.
Instead, he had escaped before the Runners came to his own door, taking all the wealth he had in cash and portable objects, disguising himself in the salesman identity he had prepared for this very eventuality.
At least Elspeth knew nothing about Stephen Wheeler, manufacturer of fine buttons, nor about the plump and juicy bank accounts and investments the Beast had in that name. He even had a house in the Midlands, where Wheeler would be welcomed when he returned from a prolonged overseas trip.
Which would be within the next few weeks. Only one thing still kept him in London, trusting in his disguise to keep him from arrest. He waited for word that the men he had hired had carried out the Beast’s final commission.
His last piece of unfinished business was the boy Tony. He had people watching the house to try another kidnapping as soon as the boy left it, but if that was out of the question, the sharpshooter he had hired would ensure that, if the Beast could not have Tony, neither would that prissy arrogant ass Aldridge.
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Both campaigns proceeded smoothly.
“The Beast has disappeared,” Wakefield reported. “We can find no trace of his movements.”
“Annoying,” commented the duke. Uncle James. Nate was still coming to terms with addressing him so intimately.
“Dealing with others in the plots he set up is easier without him,” Jamie, the duke’s eldest son, pointed out. “Many of his allies are turning on him.”
“Yes,” Wakefield agreed. “And their information is making it easy to mop up those who don’t.”
As to Nate’s and Sarah’s marriage, it was a romance to be celebrated and not a scandal to be decried, just as Rosemary had said. “Mama, Aunt Eleanor, and Aunt Georgie decree it to be so,” Sarah told Nate. “Their equally powerful friends concur. Therefore, everyone who wants to be accepted in Society is in agreement.”
Only close friends and immediate family were able to speak to the couple in question. Nate and Sarah were under firm instructions to be seen from a distance. They rode by in a carriage too quickly to do more than nod at any greeting. They visited the duck pond in Green Park with their son and Nate’s sisters surrounded by Winshire’s fierce servants, who politely requested any who dared approach to respect the family’s privacy and move along. They appeared in the Winshire box at the Opera with Lord and Lady Lechton, arriving after the curtain rose and leaving before it fell, and thus avoiding any contact with the curious or intrusive.
Visitors who arrived at either the Winshires or the Lechtons were informed that the little family was taking the time to enjoy their reunion, and were not accepting callers.
“Everywhere we go,” Jamie’s wife Sophia said, “we are besieged with questions.”
Charlotte laughed. “We tell everyone how delighted we are that the Benthams have found one another again and been reunited with their son.”
Ruth’s eyes twinkled. “And if they wish to know more, Nate, we refer them to your father.”
Nate grinned. Lord Lechton, clearly besotted with his grandson, described in detail to anyone who would listen to him the boy’s amazing accomplishments and Lady Bentham’s many virtues.
“He would be less delighted,” Nate whispered to Sarah, “if your female relatives had not absolved him of any responsibility for our separation.”
Sarah was more sympathetic. “You did not know my grandfather,” she argued. “Your father was bullied into signing those papers, Nate, as you well know. Quite right for all the blame to placed where it belongs. On my father and grandfather.”
